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Literary Excavations

Tag Archives: storytelling

I am the sort of person who really loves what they love. I will eat the same meal until I’m sick of it. I’ve watched the same episodes of The Office and Doctor Who a shameful amount of times. And my favorite items of clothing literally get worn out. Books are no different. So today I want to talk about Comfort Books. These are the books that I reread consistently, either because I can’t get enough, or I’m going through tough times. These books can ground me and bring me back to who I am. They make me feel good. Sometimes these are guilty pleasure reads–meaning I know they aren’t objectively good enough to stand the test of time or join “The Canon”, but I just can’t stay away. Other times these are books which demand to be read over and over–books that offer something new every time. These are the books that I love unconditionally. So without further ado, here is a list of my Comfort Books:

We all know the first stories were drawings on cave walls, followed by oral story telling, and the ancients chronicaling the lives and accomplishments of their gods and heroes. In these stories can be seen a desire to remember great events and understand the world around us. Stories of war and love and loss were passed down through generations–and can now be read in books and online by anyone with access. Myths and legends sprang up around the unexplainable and seemingly supernatural–and now we study them in classrooms all over the world. As people learned and nations grew, the stories evolved. We began to examine the world through all kinds of new genres of writing, and at multiple levels of society. We increasingly set aside unscientific explanations for the processes of nature and the universe, and turned to the novel for mythologizing. We now look to characters that we know to be fiction, but who teach us who we should and shouldn’t be all the same.